Blog Bites

Blog Bites 
February 2010

Welcome to the first edition of Blog Bites.  We have tried many recipes developed by fellow bloggers, and discovered amazing food as a result.  Sometimes we adhere strictly to the recipe, other times we use the original as inspiration.    We would love to hear about your experiences doing the same, so we are starting a monthly event, Blog Bites, to give everyone an opportunity to post their take on a recipe they've made that originated on a blog.  This will be an opportunity for all of us to find recipes we may have missed, discover new blogs, and to share ideas.

We find Sundays are a great day to get caught up on reading, so Blog Bites will be posted on the first Sunday of each month.   Click here for more info about Blog Bites.  Future hosts to be announced soon.  Here are this months submissions.


Appetizers and Salads

Mushroom and Mozzarella Toasts -- "Golden-brown mini toasts topped with melting mozzarella and mushrooms sautéed in rose wine, seasoned with Italian herbs… just perfect!"  posted by Alina from Russian Season and inspired by Sunny Side Up Recipes

Farinata (Socca) with Manchego --  "This is comfort food Mediterranean-style, best eaten straight out of the oven"  posted here at Vegetable Matter and inspired by Pamie from My Man's Belly

Brussels Sprout Salad -- "I am not much of a salad person. But this...it's my current addiction!" posted by Cookbrooke and inspired by Vegetable Matter


 





Soup

Roasted Red Pepper Soup --  A beautiful vegan soup with smoky red pepper and loads of flavor, based on the Eat Clean Diet Book, which is all about "eating clean and natural foods. It is not focused on weight loss, but about eating foods that came as close to the ground/earth as possible"  posted by Nicole from Making Good Choices.


Entree

Roasted Eggplant in Spices (Baingan Bhartha) --Eggplant, aka the "kind of vegetables" is the star in this spicy North Indian dish posted by Shirley at Enriching Your Kid! and inspired by Chef Sanjay Tumma

Red Beans and Sticky Rice, with Gomashio -- "While the recipe is simple -- requiring only adzuki beans, sticky rice (aka mochi rice or sweet rice), black sesame seeds and salt -- it incorporates different flavors and textures than the usual beans and rice dish", posted by Beatrice at Ginger Beat and inspired by just bento and tea and cookies


Dessert

Chocolate-Drenched Salted Peanut Cajeta Cups- a little dollop of paradise, posted by Linda at Salty Seattle and inspired by David Lebovitz Living the Sweet Life in Paris

Farinata (Socca) with Manchego Cheese

Farinata, as it's known in Italy, or Socca (the French equivalent), is a crispy flatbread made with chickpea flour.  In it's native lands, farinata is a quick snack sold by street vendors.  We first saw a recipe several years ago in the New York Times Minimalist column.  Recently, farinata popped up on David Lebovitz's website and My Man's Belly.    

If you're wondering why everyone's so excited about farinata, imagine a warm, crispy pancake full of smoky flavors that you cram into your mouth, oil dripping down your fingers and onto your chin.  This is comfort food Mediterranean-style, best eaten straight out of the oven.  Don't even bother with a plate, just wrap these in some napkins or paper towels and dig in.  Best eaten while standing.

Farinata (Socca) with Manchego Cheese

Ingredients

1          cup              farina (chickpea flour)
1          tsp               sea salt
1          tsp               ground black pepper
3          Tbs              olive oil
1/2                           white onion, chopped
1/8       tsp               cumin
1/8      cup                Manchego cheese, grated
                                well-seasoned cast iron skillet

Procedure

1. Combine farina, salt and pepper.  Slowly add 1 cup lukewarm water and whisk constantly.  Whisk until there are no lumps.  Mix in 2 Tbs olive oil, then cover bowl and let sit for at least 3 hours or up to 12 hours.  Batter will thicken to the consistency of heavy cream.
2. Preheat oven to 450°, and move shelves to top and second levels.  Place cast iron skillet in oven to heat up for about half an hour.
3. Add onion, cumin and cheese to batter.
4. Thinly coat bottom of hot cast iron skillet with olive oil, about 1 Tbs, then pour in batter.
5. Bake on the second shelf until farinata is starting to firm in the middle, about 15 minutes.
6. Raise temperature to 500° and move skillet to top shelf and broil until edges are crispy and top is starting to brown,about 5 minutes.
7. Remove immediately from skillet to stop the cooking process. Serve slices on paper towels or napkins to absorb the oil.

Blog Bites

Many of us were saddened by the demise of Gourmet magazine.  Beautiful recipes and pictures for food-obsessed people like us.   Of course, news of declining ad revenue and reduced circulation is familiar.  But we attribute Gourmet's failure in large part to the internet.  To us, the most interesting recipes, content and photographs these days can be found on food blogs.  Bloggers are the new food journalists, intrepid, creative and free of advertisers' requirements. 

We have tried many recipes developed by fellow bloggers, and discovered amazing food as a result.  Sometimes we adhere strictly to the recipe, other times we use the original as inspiration.    We would love to hear about your experiences doing the same, so we are starting a monthly event, Blog Bites, to give everyone an opportunity to post their take on a recipe they've made that originated on a blog.  This will be an opportunity for all of us to find recipes we may have missed, discover new blogs, and to share ideas.

We find Sundays are a great day to get caught up on reading, so Blog Bites will be posted on the first Sunday of each month.  We'd love volunteers to host in future months -- drop us an email if you're interested.  And if you're technical (we aren't), feel free to send any suggestions on how to best display all contributions.

A few requirements:

• Any recipe is welcome as long as it's vegetarian -- sweet, savory, dessert, bread, salad, entree, beverage, soup, etc.  Nothing against carnivores (our restaurant serves meat, and our son eats pepperoni pizza for breakfast), but this site presents only vegetarian recipes so we want to remain true to our focus.  Future hosts can eliminate that restriction.
• Submit by January 31st
• To participate, just post a comment here with the following:  Name of Dish, Brief Description, Name of original blog site, link to your blog entry AND the link to the blog entry from which the recipe originated.   If it's easier, you can e-mail us all the info at vegmatter@gmail.com.
• Include the tag "Blog Bites" in your post
• If you don't have a blog, we would still love you to participate.  Just send us all of the above (without a link to your own blog) and add a sentence or two about the dish.
• We'll post everything on the first Sunday of each month starting in February.
• If you have a picture of your dish that you'd like to include with the link, send that in jpeg format (less than 500 kb) to vegmatter@gmail.com, referencing your recipe title and blog site.
• Remain true to the original recipe, or use it as inspiration.  Also feel free to include your improvements or modifications of the original, but please avoid being negative or nasty.  If a recipe just doesn't work (it happens), try a different recipe for this event.